E-books
These e-books contain selections of my favorite photography as well as essays I’ve written. My goal with these books is to try to both educate and entertain, and to share my images in a way that can’t be done in a traditional online gallery format.
These books are absolutely free with no obligation.
Thanks for downloading and enjoying my books, and sharing them with friends you think might also appreciate them. If you have feedback on them, please drop me a note at chuqvr@gmail.com.
Birding 101: Hints and Tips for the New Birder
(Released September, 2022)
I am happy to announce that I’ve released my second e-book this year (and eighth overall): Birding 101: Hints and Tips for New Birders. I wrote this book specifically for the new birder or the person who’s become interesting in birdwatching but hasn’t yet decided if they want to get serious about it.
If you are new to birdwatching or know someone who’s interested in birds and are curious about the idea of joining the birding community, then download and read this book. I hope it will help answer questions you have about the birding lifestyle and why we do some of the things we do, and shorten your learning curve to becoming a better birder yourself.
It contains about 11,000 words, about half of which started out as blog posts or emails I created answering questions during It compiles many of the things I learned as a new birder, and tries to answer many of the questions I was asked during my time leading groups for Santa Clara Valley Audubon and running their online reporting list South Bay Birds. Everything was completely rewritten for this book while I updated them and made them relevant to a birder anywhere and not just for those birding back in Silicon Valley.
The book is available both online, and as a free download. As you prefer, you can download the PDF or read and share the online version as you prefer.
Merced National Wildlife Refuge
(Released July, 2022)
Merced National Wildlife Refuge contains my thoughts and images from 15 years of visiting and studying this key bird habitat in California’s Central Valley. Home to many tens of thousands of migrating birds in the winter, Merced NWR is an important part of the Pacific Flyway.
Wildlife Refuges are not natural or wild; they are carefully created spaces intended to simulate and replace the kind of bird habitat that existed prior to humans draining, farming and developing so much of the landscape.
The ponds are artificial, the meadows mown and given to pasture by cows and sheep to keep them open, and the water is imported, which is a growing problem as the droughts faced by California deepen. Those droughts have impacted places like Merced heavily already, killing many of the ancient oaks and limiting the facilities' ability to create water spaces for the wintering birds that require them.
And yet every winter the birds come in the thousands, with millions flying south to the various refuges along the Pacific Flyway, and find safe havens to rest and feed until it is time for them to return north to breed.
Allow me to share with you a favorite place of mine and one I think you’ll learn to love as well if you enjoy birds and want to see them thrive.
Download the PDF. You can also view this and share the online version if you prefer.
Please enjoy my other ebooks, too!
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And the Geese Exploded: A Life With Birds
The book is a combination of a series of short essays about my birding life, how I feel so deeply for birdwatching, and some of the aspects of being a birdwatcher that mean so much to me. It also includes over 100 of my favorite photos that I've taken over the last decade in the greater Bay Area, out in the central valley wildlife refuges, and in the western coastal states of the U.S.
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Birds of Santa Clara County
This book documents over 80 species of birds I’ve seen here in the heart of Silicon Valley. Photographs of each bird taken by me between 2007 and 2020.
This is not intended to be a field guide although many entries have hints and tips on when and where to find a species in the county. I have tried, instead, to talk a bit about why each species is interesting to me.
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2019 (2)
This chapbook collects three sets of photos I took in 2019: my annual “best of” collection, my favorite images of the year, and the images I created during my time at the Art Wolfe Olympic National Park Photo Workshop/Retreat.
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2019 (1)
My first chapbook, which contains This is a small chapbook of images I collected around two of my Best of the Year collections (2017 and 2018) and one of the early Bodies of Works I put together called Eyes.
It was my first attempt at publishing an E-book, and some of the rough edges show, but it was an interesting project that got me publishing in this form and leading to the other e-books I have available.
